Recently, Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), which is used as a standard (language) capable of describing business processes as workflows, has been growing in popularity. In relation to BPEL, tools have been prepared that are capable of visually describing desired workflows by performing operations to select and combine desired components from plural types of components corresponding to mutually different processes, and that are capable of automatically generating programs conforming to BPEL from the workflows that are created, and an execution environment in which a program automatically generated by such a tool is executed by a computer may be constructed. Therefore, by utilizing these tools, the development of a program that realizes a workflow providing a desired web service by means of a computer may be performed easily and in a short time without coding operations that require knowledge relating to programming languages.
Java® Server Faces (JSF) is known as a standard for constructing user interfaces for web applications. In relation to JSF, tools have been prepared with which, by performing operations such as selecting and providing desired symbols from plural types of symbol that are usable as structural elements of a user interface screen and the like, design of a user interface screen, construction of a user interface with definitions of transitions of user interface screens and the like, and suchlike are possible. Thus, these tools are capable of automatically generating a program that realizes the constructed user interface. By utilizing such a tool, a program that realizes a desired user interface may be provided easily and in a short time without coding operations. Therefore, in the development of a web application, if programs of user interface parts of the web application are automatically generated using a JSF tool and programs of portions that provide web services are automatically generated using a BPEL tool, coding operations are not necessary at all. Thus, it is expected that a great reduction in development times may be realized.
However, no consideration has been given to programs automatically generated by using JSF (programs that realize user interfaces) being operated in conjunction with programs automatically generated by using BPEL (programs that realize workflows) (i.e., processing that calls another program is not defined as a standard). For example, in order to construct a user interface that includes a specific user interface screen which is directly called by a link being selected (for example, a hyperlink pasted into an arbitrary text, an Internet shortcut or the like) and which displays a result of execution of a specific web service, a program that starts a specific program providing the specific web service must be separately created by a coding operation and added to the specific user interface screen. Therefore, even when programs of the user interface parts in a development target user application are automatically created by using a JSF tool and programs of the parts providing web services are automatically generated by using a BPEL tool, coding operations are necessary anyway. Consequently, a great reduction of development times has been difficult.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2003-108558 (Patent Reference 1) concerning the above, a technology is proposed in which a socket communications program capable of communicating with a web server without using a web browser is provided at a client terminal, and a program is provided at a web server for performing exchanges with a database on a data server in accordance with requests sent from the client terminal by means of the socket communications program and sending results thereof to the client terminal. Thus, displaying results without using a web browser at the client terminal is enabled, and automation of data processing is realized.
In JP-A No. 2006-268121 (Patent Reference 2), a technology is proposed in which, at an application server having a first virtual machine that implements an interface with a client and a second virtual machine that executes various business objects, identifiers of data necessary for processing of the business objects are stored for each business object. The first virtual machine displays an arbitrary screen at the client and implements arbitrary data input and, when receiving a request that includes form data and calling a business object corresponding to the received request, acquires identifiers of respective data required by the called business object and, of respective data included in the form data, transfers to the second virtual machine only data whose identifiers match the acquired identifiers. Thus, coding for processing to extract data required at the second virtual machine side is unnecessary.
In JP-A No. 2004-38559 (Patent Reference 3), a technology is disclosed in which a web application control device, which assigns task processing in accordance with details of requests from clients to any of plural task processing modules that have been prepared and returns processing results to the request source clients, receives a request from a client including data that is a target of task processing together with identification information of the task processing to be executed, assigns the processing to a task processing module corresponding to the received identification information, acquires a processing result, assigns processing result screen generation processing to any of plural screen generation modules on the basis of the identification information and the processing result of the task processing module, generates the assigned processing result screen data, and outputs it to the request source client as a response.